


Maryn's Day Off

by thesilvergoddess



Series: Songs of the New Gods [2]
Category: As Dead As Night, Songs of the New Gods - Selene D'Argent, World of Warcraft
Genre: AU, Original Character(s), Pre-Series, Upcoming Series, WOW AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 15:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12510984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesilvergoddess/pseuds/thesilvergoddess
Summary: Maryn has a little time on her hands and takes the day off.





	Maryn's Day Off

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Light, Forsaken](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7858150) by [FreakshowImprov](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreakshowImprov/pseuds/FreakshowImprov). 



> This is just a part of a group of character studies for an upcoming series, so if AO3 makes me take it down, I'll deal with it then. The series will be called Songs of the New Gods and the first book will be As Dead As Night.

Maryn closed her eyes and leaned back against the stone bench in the western gardens, basking in the red-ish sunlight thrown by the early year sun. She wouldn’t say that she  _ loved _ the Rebirth, nor was it particularly her favorite time of year, but she did find herself wanting to bask in the sun like a fat orange tabby cat. Behind her closed lids, she could feel the birds thumping around her, and she embraced their song, wishing she sounded half as good as any one of them. Her mind drifted lazily as the mind often does when in a well-deserved, midday half-sleep.

Birdsong transported her back in her mind to a time that she had trouble remembering, save for in her daydreams. Eidetic memory or not, if it wasn't written, she was as fallible as anyone else in the recall department, so she wondered how many of her childhood memories were simply fakes of her own imagination. Even still, the brush of a rough spun cloth on her face right before a splash of cold water was always one of the things she remembered first when she daydreamed. Maybe that was a real memory. Maybe that's all she had from home besides her mother’s satchel. 

The sweetness in the air - the sweetness of flowers just waking up from a long year without their presence - turned acrid in Maryn’s memory. Acrid like burning sap. Acrid like tar catching spark. Acrid like the building that had fallen in on both of her parents. 

“Maryn?”

Maryn felt her eyes snap open before the roof could collapse on the figures whose faces she did not remember. Burning wood and woodsmoke faded back into the honeyed floral aroma of the gardens. A shadow fell upon her and stretched from the toes of a lanky, green bean by the name of Anna. Her long ears bobbed as she tilted her head and pursed her dark, mossy-green lips. 

She put her strong arms on her narrow hips and made a face like she was beyond exasperated. “I called you like… eight times. You made me use your actual  _ name _ , which is, may I remind you,  _ very uncool _ .”

Maryn couldn't stop the smile stretching across her face as she looked up at Anna. Something about her lithe grace made Maryn want to do…... something. Not exactly temple-approved activity. 

Maryn’s lip found its way between her teeth as she looked up at the petulant Anna, and she came to her senses quick enough to avoid too much suspicion. She tried to make her voice sound normal and not too squeaky. “What's up, Anna?”

“What are you doing out here by yourself?” Anna asked with the utmost matter-of-factness. 

“I've got the day off, and I was thinking about what to do with myself.”

Anna shook her head. “Only you wouldn't know what to do with free time.  _ I _ , for one, would  _ love _ a day off, and I'd make as much noise as possible.”

Maryn knew she wasn't lying. “Okay, presuming that you  _ deserved _ a day off, what exactly would you do?”

Anna put a thin fingered hand on her chest in mock chastisement and surprised. “Deserve a day off? No one deserves it more than me! I work all day every day and never get any time off.”

Maryn frowned. “Anna, I've never seen you work for anything before.”

Anna winked. “That's not true, and you know it.”

Maryn suddenly found that her hands in her lap were a very interesting sight to see, much more interesting than Anna’s smug, knowing look, for sure. 

Anna blew out a breath and turned, plopping down on the bench next to Maryn, and she rubbed that the platinum white stubble on her head. Maryn looked over at her and tried not to notice the way the red sun made her skin simply  _ glow _ and tried not to notice how her golden eyes glimmered with strange longing and a distance that Maryn was only privy to seeing every long once and a while. “Honestly, Red, I think I'd like to just go adventuring. No rulings. No paperwork. No judgments. Just… exploring the big world.” Her face turned back into a jovial, if not a bit smug, thing, and she put her dexterous hand on both of Maryn’s with a completely, painfully platonic slap. “But if I had a day off the job, I'd like to think I'd go get hammered then nailed, if you know what I mean.”

Maryn felt the tips of her ears burning. “Yeah, that…”  _ sounds like something I could help with  _ “sounds nice.”

“Pshhh,” scoffed Anna. “I know that's not your style, Red. You don't gotta mock me.”

Before Maryn could protest, Anna put a long finger on her lips, and Maryn had the sudden urge to take Anna’s index finger in her mouth, but she resisted the urge. 

“I think…” Anna said, tapping her chin with her other hand. “I think you should go out and enjoy yourself.” She pulled a wallet from the pockets of her incredibly short robe. Maryn felt herself frown. The standard issue robes didn’t… have pockets… But then again, standard issue robes didn’t come up to mid-thigh. She must have done some modifications on her own. She tossed some coins into Maryn’s lap. “Go buy some of that fancy paper you want. Get a new quill. Get one of those self-refilling quills that the human sector’s been selling. Eat some gnomish salsa. Drink some dwarven ale. Write a book. Kiss an orc girl. I don’t care. Just go have fun.” She flashed a smile that wasn’t at all disingenuous. “You deserve it.”

Maryn eyed the coins in her lap and then eyed Anna’s gorgeous face. “What’s the catch?”

Anna frowned, a cloud passing over her pleasant features. “The catch is that if you don’t have fun, I’ll beat you up.”

Maryn missed a beat before snorting and pushing Anna lightly. “You ass.”

But she took the coins without much more of a fuss. “You sure that you don’t need these?”

“Nah… A couple GP going by the wayside isn’t going to hurt me any. You know I’ve got suitors who throw things at me, and I just end up hocking all the stuff. I don’t need anything.” She leaned down and kissed Maryn on the cheek once and walked off with her hands in her pockets, slouching away as she was often to do. 

Maryn wasn’t really sure how to take Anna most days. Usually she was warm to the point that Maryn thought that something might actually happen between them again, but no, Anna would turn off that kindness so abruptly that Maryn would be shut out in the cold with a broken heart, yet again, and very confused. To end on such a warm note made Maryn’s hopeful, naive little heart flutter. Maybe she’d buy something for Anna while she was out…

No, no. Anna would all but refuse to speak to Maryn if she did that. There was something about her weird relationship with Anna that would always draw them together before pushing them apart again. 

_ Go drown your sorrows in nice paper _ , Maryn thought to herself rather sternly. 

She couldn’t get Anna back, but then again, there was nothing between them to retrieve. One night of passionate lovemaking a few years before and that was it. Otherwise, they’d been nothing but close friends. 

Maryn took another look up into the ruddy sky and sighed, her head too full of thoughts. That was her detriment, in part. 

She hauled herself up, though, with a little, “Up we go,” and leisurely strode through the gardens, making note of all the little flowers poking their heads out of the soft dirt to wake up into a new cycle. She squatted by one, picking up the head of a green plant’s little curl out of the soil with the back of her index finger. She didn’t quite know what the gardeners had planted this Rebirth, and she didn’t really want to know until they were recognizable because she often found herself guessing what types of plants they were based on their growth and flowering. It was a tiny little surprise that she kept to herself kind of like the way she would sneak off some nights to exchange gossip with the Gryphon Master over some fine elvish wine or dwarvish ale or draconic lager. 

Maryn stood and brushed off her knees out of habit rather than need.When she stood, she made up her mind that she would at least get Anna some sweet buns, which she knew Anna wouldn’t resist. 

She quickly went to change into trousers and a simple blouse to avoid special treatment from anyone in the city, which they had a tendency to do if she wore her temple-affiliated clothing, and left just as quickly, thanking the guard on her way out of the temple’s walls and offering to buy her something on her way out to which the guard declined with a polite thanks. Maryn couldn’t say that she didn’t understand since a guard becoming distracted for even a moment might result in punishment by higher-ups, but there was no harm in trying to be nice just in case she needed a favor later. That was what she did for most people in the temple guard… or anyone in the temple, for that matter. She had quite enough money to do a few favors, but she also had enough to do exactly two favors and one thing for herself.

Maryn sighed as she walked down the wide, cobbled street, thinking about how she could be doing more harm than good by trying to get in Anna’s good graces, but she thought it would be well worth the risk if it payed off. 

_ What do you mean paid off _ ?

She walked a little faster as if trying to get further away from the thought. 

Her almost-trot helped her quickly to the more artistic district, where elves and dwarves and gnomes and humans and orcs all alike were honing their crafts in shops in front of wide windows or out in the street. The tinking of smithies mingled with the whirring of pottery wheels and the rhythms that flowed discordantly yet harmoniously through the air, tinting it with the hues of life and vibrance. She could faintly smell the market district and it’s sweet scents a few streets over. 

Maryn found herself waving hello to a few craftspeople and laughing along with their songs and dances. One performer even pulled her into a bit of a dance that she seemed to have some inkling of familiarity with, perhaps from another time in her life where she’d watched her parents dance or where she had as a wee little child. She stomped and turned, taking the young performer’s hands, and danced until she panted, which was significantly longer than she thought she could. Physical activity wasn’t too high on her priority list, but she could still dance with the best of them. The temple encouraged such displays of joy, and she was quite partial to engaging in song and dance. Her leather trousers clung to her legs and rubbed at them in her revelry, but she could ignore it until the sweat started to make her pants chafe the insides of her thighs and her shirt stuck to her back and upper arms. 

She thanked the birch-skinned wood elf and bowed deeply to which they responded in kind, which made her laugh a little. Those kinds of bows were reserved for people who’d done you a favor, and it tickled her to see it done so… flippantly and out of place. 

She didn't have leave to go out into the town during the day, and the night scene was much more different. The town became a painted glory of a different kind of vibrance in the evenings and through the night - a romantic air that reflected in every lantern, every song that flowed from street corners, every yell and every joyful cry. Stores opened at all hours of the day - some in the middle of the night, some in the wee hours of morning. There was always something to do and somewhere to go along the cobbled streets stretching between the eclectic buildings. 

Life pulsed through Heirosol like blood cells in an organism, sprawling but working together. 

Maryn continued walking, still sweaty, and put her hair in a high bun with a muttered incantation, but strands of loose curls still tickled her neck. She waved at the shopkeeper of a music store she and Anna frequented, and a jeweler invited her inside with warm words. Everyone on the street milled around absorbed in their own conversations and groups, laughing and jostling around with woven bags, paper bags, canvas bags… But Maryn walked alone to the quiet stationery store. 

The door swung in, striking a bell hanging just over the inner threshold of the door, and Maryn smiled to herself. That was a little detail that she always loved - a little old fashioned, perhaps, but it was still lovable nevertheless. The elderly woman behind the counter went to stand, but Maryn put up a hand with a smile, letting her sit back down. 

“Without your shadow, I see.”

Maryn looked down at her shoes, “Usually, I’m  _ her _ shadow, Eileen. You know that.”

“I’m sure you are,” the old woman agreed without actually meaning it but made up for her sarcasm with questions. Humans were like that. “What brings you in today? Has the temple simply run out of parchment? What  _ ever _ shall we do?”

Maryn snorted and shuffled over toward the window display that had rows of various papers in neat stacks, some bound and some loose-leaf, and as many utensils and easels as any other painter’s shop, but here at the Quill and Ink, everything was hand made by the shopkeeper and the rest of her family. Maryn placed the human woman at around ninety, which meant she still had a few more decades to go, but humans always became so fragile in these lean years of their lives. Sometimes, she wondered if she would walk into the shop one day and Jean, Eileen’s son, would be tending it instead. She’d had plenty of kind words with Jean, but he was much more business oriented than Eileen, who always made time in her day to talk to customers and get to know them beyond a professional courtesy. Once, Eileen had even made Maryn a gift package for her birthday. 

Maryn stood up from her inspection and approached the counter, leaning heavily on the solid oak. “I’m just browsing. I had some time off today, and I thought I would swing by to get one of those… self-refilling quills I’ve been hearing about.”

Eileen sat in her rocker with pursed lips before snapping her old bony fingers with bright eyes full of mischief. “Did you mean a  _ pen _ , dear?”

Maryn felt herself frowning. “What is a pen?”

Eileen leaned over cackling with a wheezing cough that sounded like wind blowing through a wood stack more than a laugh. “Oh, honey, coming to this world’s been a  _ riot _ …” She wiped the corners of her eyes and straightened in her rocker slightly. “It’s… it’s a… you see…” 

She pulled a featherless quill made of glass from her pocket that showed a stick of black within and scribbled on the palm of her hand with its metal point. 

Maryn leaned forward. “How did you do that.”

Eileen was still sighing her laughs. “I  _ do _ so very much love this world. It’s just a  _ pen _ , Maryn. Here, I have several. Just take it, and when that one runs out, just let me know, and I’ll get the fae to bring me another shipment of them in.”

Maryn greedily took the apparatus from Eileen’s withered hand and made a stripe on the back of her own, gasping at how easily the pen had made its mark. If it were that easy to write all the time, no one would stop doing it, for sure. 

“How much do I owe you?” Maryn started, her voice losing some of the excitement for caution. This kind of thing might cost more than Maryn could ever make in the temple in her whole life. 

Eileen shook her head. “It’s nearly worthless here, so just keep it. Back home, a pack of them might cost around five dollars for a few nice ones.”

Maryn frowned. She’d heard about humans and their currencies. No two nations had the same currency that ran on the same system, it seemed. Maryn didn’t know how anyone could possibly keep up with any of it, but she figured that humans had to be smart in some ways that she could never understand. 

“Oh, that doesn’t mean anything to you, dear, but just know that it would cost maybe… Hmm… How does that conversion system work… About five silvers, then? For at least three… No, no. That’s too much. Considering we haven’t been on the gold standard in decades upon decades makes this conversion very difficult.”

Maryn blinked, a little lost in the whole “gold standard” of it all. Her mind was mostly hung up on how such a time saving, clean apparatus only cost very little time. “ _ This _ cost  _ that little _ ?”

Eileen shrugged. “It’s a different need in a very different place.”

Maryn shook her head, not really sure how to wrap her mind around cheap and effective writing utensils, but if there was a technology that the people on this planet wanted, all they had to do was ask the right people. 

Maryn had never seen The Right People up close before, but she knew that going to the Caldwyn was a normal occurrence for everyone else on the planet other than those in the temple. Elders regularly convened with the aliens that had come to foster a symbiotic relationship with the people of Therin. Of course, there had been a five hundred year war between the Caldwyn and the merfolk, who viewed the Caldwyn as invaders of their territory, but everyone had come out of the conflict better than they had been before. 

Well… Not immediately.

Maryn shook her head and brought herself back to the present and out of her books in the temple. The elderly Eileen was looking at her curiously but didn’t ask any questions. 

Out of courtesy, Maryn went ahead and bought a new notebook and some newer parchment for sketching before thanking the shopkeeper and scooting out of the shop.

The streets embraced her again, and the sun stretched long into the western sky.

She meandered a little more than she thought she would, but it was comforting in a way. The sun was beginning to dip behind the tops of buildings but still gave enough light to avoid kicking on the night time lighting system. 

Her wanderings lead her into the market district where she puttered around and practically floated along on the wafting scents of delicious patisseries’ baked goods and butcher’s shops’ roasting meats. The smells went together about as well as all of the music in the artisan’s district did, but Maryn could never complain. Wandering through Heirosol made her feel alive in a way that she sometimes lost in the upkeep of her duties at the temple. 

More quickly than she had with her own purchases, she gathered up some herbs for the kitchen crew and a bottle of sherry for the captain of the guard and went on her way to a few bakeries before stopping and finally getting some honey rolls for Anna, but that was only after she’d bought herself a considerable amount of small candies - one of her many weaknesses. 

On her way back to the temple, the lanterns began casting their magical glow on the streets around her, and a certain type of melancholy ate at her happiness until melancholy was all that was left. 

She’d spent her whole day alone.

Maryn sighed. 

One day, she would have someone to walk around with and laugh with. Right?

Until then, she would just have to keep her chin up and keep doing her thing.


End file.
